ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 March 1921, Page 4

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

MOTOR ACCIDENT ON TARATA ZIG-ZAG. (From Our Inglewood Correspondent.) East .Wednesday morning, as Mr E. Butler was driving in from his farm on the Otaraoa near Tarata, having Mrs. Butler and a lady friend with him in the gig,’ he was met/at one of the most awkward bends rtn the zigzag, not far from the east side of the summit, by a motor car going at a smart ra|e in th£ opposite direction. Mr. Butler was well on the bank side of the road, his left-hand side but there was no chance to escape a smash. The shafts of the gig were broken, the horse severely cut from the shoulder across the chest. The wind screen of the car was smashed by the impact of one of the shafts, which was driven through it, and very narrowly missed killing young Mr. Sattler, the driver; it did graze the side of his head. The other occupants of the two vehicles were practically uninjured, except for the shock and shaking inevitable on such occasions. Sattler was able to go on foot to Tarata, where he got the help.of Mr. Paterson, with whom he came back to the scene of the mishap, when Mr. Paterson took the two passengers of the car on to Tarata in his motor. Sattler was able to get the damaged motor car away too, and Mr. Butler and his passengers were brought on to Inglewood by a kindly passer-by. The wounded horse meanwhile had been removed to the nearest farm on the Inglewood end of the zigzag—formerly known as Joe George’s farm —and here the same evening Mr. A. Stockman of Inglewood, attended to it. having to insert six stitches before he could make the poor beast anything like comfortable. Mr. Butler said, however, on Thursday that it appeared to be doing all right. All parties concerned may congratulate themselves on having got off so iightly; none more than the driver of the motor, whose escape from sudden death must, from all accounts, have been little short of miraculous.